Repetitive Violence (Against the Crime Stats)

Crime figures are down, way down. 12% overall, robbery down 21%, car theft down 19%.

The only measure showing an increase was gun crime, up 4%. This success in enforcement and crime prevention presents something of a problem for the Conservatives particularly as the local elections loom on May 1. How can they portray the Government as impotent in the face of the rising tide of crime (we've all read about in the Daily Mail) when the pesky figures keep going down? Focus solely on the very few increases of course.

This week every Conservative MP in the East Anglian region asked the same Parliamentary Question of Home Office Minister, 'Big' Vernon Coaker which was how much violent crime had risen in their constituency. Such co-ordinated attacks by PQ are rare and presumably orchestrated by Central Office for shadow Home Sec, David 'Headhunter' Davis. It would have been more effective if someone had told them crime figures are not collated by constituency. But Vern tried to be helpful and sent some figures through to the hapless backbenchers. None I saw showed very dramatic increases, some very small, some decreases. However one measure can be relied upon to increase exponentially which is always useful at election time: the fear of crime, always at a record high.

It's Broke but Jim Won't Fix it.

James 'Jim' Brokenshire (pictured) is one of nature's good scouts; short hair, patriotic, non-smoker, kind to animals. He probably only really misbehaves when he doesn't eat a full five portions of fruit and veg. James is shadow Home Affairs spokesman and unusally for a front bencher has a Ten-Minute Rule Bill next Tuesday - the Bill includes various road safety measures. Jim recommends introducing driving test theory questions on how to avoid bad crashes. Not sure you need legislation for that, perhaps he could just write to Driving Standards Agency and suggest a re-wording.

James B's Bill also includes a proposal for a new offence of aggravated dangerous driving. In other words really, really dangerous driving. I'm not sure how this provision would actually deter unlicensed drivers seeking to shake off the boys in blue.

Road death is England is, proportionally, the lowest in Europe. When you take the UK figures as a whole we are still only slightly behind the notoriously cautious Swedes but miles better than French, Germans and Spanish (Portugal has the worst drivers). But 3,200 deaths a year in this country is still alot and three times as many who die of drug overdoses.

There are some obvious measures which could reduce that figure dramatically; lower speed limits, increase the numbers of speed cameras and lower the drink drive limit. The only problem with these practical measures are they are almost impossible to implement in the face of a rabidly hostile media. The last time there was even a whisper of support for a lower limit the Daily Mail screamed, "Banned for just one glass of wine!" Rubbish of course but the implication is that we should have the right to drive after sinking a couple is frankly bizarre. It would be refreshing to hear a shadow Minister support road safety proposals which are based on solid evidence of reducing death and injury rather than agreeing with the prejudiced editorial of any Associated Press newspaper.

Who Guards the Coastguards?

Coastguards are a little bit like gravediggers, insofar as when they go on strike you realise the Government are getting something terribly wrong. This week saw the first ever strike action by East Anglia's coastgaurds in protest at the pitiful pay offer of 1.9%. We may value the Coastguard service and consider them 4th emergency service (even above the AA who have tried to pinch that nomenclature) but the truth is they are very badly paid indeed. The most a top grade Coastguard can aspire to earn is a mere £23,000, well below the average income.

The Government set out its belt-tightening programme for public workers last year with a message to the police and other public servants that they could not expect any increase above 2%. The argument put by Ministers was police pay (like nurse and teachers) had gone up significantly in the last 10 years and there is some truth in that. The Government stuck to its guns with the cops, but the price of Jacqui Smith saving HM Treasury a mere £40m has meant losing the goodwill of the rank and file officers. They have even gone to the High Court for a Judicial Review. If our Jacqs is invited address the Police Federation Conference this year she's be advised to take a riot shield.

Other pay settlements have busted this 70s style incomes policy. Ed Balls, in typically unilateral manner, offered the teachers over 2.5% although it was not enough to put off a strike anyway. Alan Johnson offered the nurses even more, 8% over three years.

Not all are doing as well. The public sector workers who hold little public affection are the 650,000 civil servants and they have been enduring below inflation increases for at least 15 years. The Government introduced family tax credits in 2001 to ensure a minimum income for working families of £200 a week - it is a supreme irony that more than half the civil servants at the Department of work and Pensions who administer the tax credits are on such low wages that they are also entitled to receive them. Not suprisngly 100,000 civil servants will strike on 24 April to co-incide with the first national walkout by teachers since 1987.

Incidentally going on strike is not altogther straightforward in Whitehall, senior officials have been known to request the names of all middle managers who supported strike action. The implication is clear; strike if you like, but don't expect a long career.

Up With This He Will Not Put

The A12 is a pretty dire stretch of road, I admit. It runs north-easterly from the City for 121 miles to the entertainment hotspot of Great Yarmouth. Total road closures are fairly common and there are certain times when you would not consider travelling on it, such as during the week and also at weekends.
Leader of Essex County Council, Paul White, aka Lord Hanningfield yesterday announced a 'Public Inquiry' into what can be done. He had also secured the administration services of Sir David Rowlands, Chelmsford resident and previously permanent secretary at the Department of Transport. Lord H. appeared on BBC East disgruntled and portly in his reacto-lite rapide bi-focals and berated the Govenment for not carrying out the Inquiry. So, I then realised it isn't a public inquiry at all. Rather the pompous project of a self-important Councillor funded entirely by the council taxpayers of Essex. It hasn't even been properly costed, he estimated the bill to be "a few thousand". It's as well to be precise about public money, eh?
Lord H. sits in the Lords and just happens to be Shadow Minister for Transport - he has no doubt been lobbying Ruth Kelly for a Public Inquiry. But she was unsurprisingly lacking in sympathy for the cause of an uber-Tory. So undeterred his Lordship has carried on regardless. Sir David Rowlands, as chair, lends it the air of an authentic, independent inquiry but Sir D then blew it when he told the Beeb,
“When I was at the Department for Transport, I very carefully did not allow any personal interest to dictate what I or the department did,” he said. “Now I'm retired." So much for the even-handed approach. The conclusions of the report could easily be written now and would be along the lines of " A12 is a disaster...we've done our best...every other region gets more than us...bloody Labour Government".

Life of Brian

David Amess (Southend West) asked Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith this week how many arrests and convictions there had been for protesting in Parliament Square. The answer was 22 arrests leading to 16 convictions. What the answer did not reveal was that it was always the same person - the ever-present peace protestor Brian Haw (pictured).
It is a testament to the man that, despite efforts from the Government, police and the Mayor, his protest camp has remained opposite the Palace of Westminster for so long. Maybe our police are a bit soft, in the US or France a similar protest would have been quelled in minutes with customary brutality.
The majority of the electorate have now come to realise the Iraq war was something of a tactical error. Our Brian stands, if not on the moral high ground, at least on a moral hillock. He's been ensconsed in his tent since June 2001, which is, urm actually before 9/11 and any plot of a war in Iraq.
You may ask why such a public figure has not been interviewed regularly. Let's put it this way, given Brian's slightly eccentric manner, any interview could risk putting the cause of peace back some years. Simon Hoggart of the Guardian tip-toed around a fuller description of him when he said, "I doubt whether many people have had their minds changed through the power of Mr Haw's thought".
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I was having a beer in the Westminster pub opposite 'Big Ben' about three years ago. It was crowded but one small table had a space and so I sat down. My perusal of the racing page was interupted by my companion on the other side of the table - the front page of the paper had a headline about the recent Tsunami in the Indian Ocean and he began pouring forth his views. Even possessing only a modest knowledge of geography, I still found it hard to agree with his analysis of the real cause of the earthquake was global warming and Man's incessant greed for oil.
I said I was sure plate techtonics and climatology were not so closely related. His mood darkened at that stage and we moved on to the history of the solar system. Again, I found his assertion that the Earth was a 'dark star' and was, in fact, older than the sun, hard to square with the counter claims of those gifted amateurs, Gallileo and Einstein. He decided by then he didn't like me, drained his glass and reached for his hat covered with peace badges. It was only then I realised my drinking buddy was Mr Haw himself.
It may take a few more years but one day Brian will give up his protest and go back home. But where is home? Brian's family, one may have predicted, are all from Barking.

Bob's Off but I Missed it

Bob Spink (Castle Point) featured in February's blog relating to Member's expenses. Only this week I realised Bob had become the third Conservative to lose the party whip after Derek Conway and Andrew Pelling.
Degsy Conway, you will recall, employed nearly his entire family in his Parliamentary office although quite what they did to earn the renumeration is not altogether clear. Derek is the only MP ever to resign to spend less time with his family. Andrew Pelling was "resigned" from the whip following a fracas with his wife last year, although charges of assault were dropped.
The reasons for Bob's departure are harder to discern. He raised the issue as a point of order during the budget debate and referred to "criminal and other irregularities" in his constituency.
Bob has been fighting his association who wish to de-select him and accusations about his private life abound. Say what you like about Bob Spink (and people do, often) he's certainly not idle, the day he took the hemlock, he laid 29 Parliamentary Questions. I confess I missed the entire episode as I was, that week, consumed by events at the Cheltenham Festival.
I've seen Bob Spink at work in the Commons and he comes across as someone from the Norman Tebbit school of tolerance and fraternity. In 2005 one of his election campaign leaflets included the following question to our former PM on asylum seekers, "What part of 'send them back' don't you understand Mr Blair?"
Anyone might now put the question, "What part of 'you're sacked' don't you understand, Mr Spink?"

Smoke Signals

James Brokenshire (Hornchurch) asked Drugs Minister Vernon Coaker this week how many trafficked children had been found to be working in cannabis factories. An important point - there is plenty of evidence to show there has been a huge shift in recent years from imported hashish from Morroco to home-cultivated cannabis. Vietnamese gangs have been behind a lot of it like they were in Canada. Vernon raised this point himself during the last Home Office questions in February hinting it was further reason for the Government to re-classify cannabis back to class B. And the answer to the question on trafficked children, um, just one actually.

Every Home Secretary seems to want to carry out their own cannabis review. The latest is at the PM's request. Announced in July the Government is likely to (eventually) make its decision public in early May after the disastrous local elections. The decision to return to Class B will be contrary to medical evidence and scientific advice provided by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The role of this independant body will, in the event, be totally undermined.

Cannabis will then be classed with amphetamines as a drug of equivalent harm. Many young people may like a smoke but would not dream of putting speed up their noses. The credibility of drug education messages will be lost at a stroke.

But the Government will say they will be sending out a strong signal about drug use. Except cannabis use has been in decline for 10 years. The police say they need the law strengthened to be able to tackle cannabis growers. Except the penalties for cultivation for Class C and B drugs are identical. The priority given to drug dealing is an operational matter for each force so the classification of the drug is irrelevant.

There is no issue today which better shows up Labour in a classic third term mode. They are pandering blindly to the popular issues but blundering about like some drunken hippo and making matters a whole lot worse. The fact that the Tories support them in this spliff enterprise should tell them something.